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Site Upgrade

As you've probably noticed, things look a little different here today. I'm still working out some of the kinks, but I've upgraded the forum and site platform to the latest version of the software we use. The upgrade was a little more painful than some previous upgrades, but I think the majority of the hard work is done.

There were a few reasons I finally decided to shell out the money (and time) for the upgrade, not the least of which being that this version of the forums comes with a content management system that is integrated with the rest of the site. We were previously using a separate CMS that was designed to hook into our forums, but it was outdated, and the company that makes it stopped developing it. The integrated system will hopefully mean more opportunities for fresh content (not just in the forums).

Some of the new features:

- Integrated blogs
- Single-sign on (similar to before, but less clunky)
- Register using your Facebook account if you want
- Personal photo albums
- Good forum posts can be promoted to article status if they are valuable
- Good blog posts can be promoted to article status if they are valuable
- Video embedding right into posts now! Whee!
- Whole site+blogs+forum search in one
- Improves RSS support - every section, blog, forum category, etc has its own RSS feed so you can get updates on only what interests you.

There's more, but I haven't slept yet, so I'm blanking on it.

I'll have the look and feel fixed up soon, and back to something a bit more wenchy, hopefully within the week. In the meantime, I appreciate your patience. :)

22 Comments

AnnaFaerie
- 05-10-2010, 09:16 AM

Good morning. I will try to wait without going crazy. I have to have my morning hit of the Wenches.

And I've got a question for you - Do we still have the Local groups? I tried to check for membership requests this morning and couldn't find the link to the group membership page. If it's still in the kinks to be worked out, I'll wait patiently. LOL

@Lady Sarah - we do still have local groups, but for some reason they don't show up under groups anymore. It's very confusing. This version of the software seems to recognize two types of groups, and whichever one it is that we don't use, that's the one it thinks you want to see when you click on groups. I'm not actually sure where they moved usergroups to. :(

@Lady Sarah - we do still have local groups, but for some reason they don't show up under groups anymore. It's very confusing. This version of the software seems to recognize two types of groups, and whichever one it is that we don't use, that's the one it thinks you want to see when you click on groups. I'm not actually sure where they moved usergroups to. :(

Those usergroups can be accessed under Settings, then Permission Groups.

I was hoping to download the Little Brown Book/Songbook ...are they available on this new-looking site yet? If so, where have I been missing them? (The sticky has a link, but said link takes me straight back to the home page.) !!

Is anyone else getting a floating "share it" banner for Facebook, Twitter and via email when they check out posts now?

It's the Apture toolbar. I'm sorry if you find it annoying - I find it quite helpful, as it gives you share links wherever you are on the page, and a quick link back to the homepage even if you're scrolled all the way down. Plus it keeps the site name, site search and logo visible. I've used it on several websites and people generally like it.

You can hide it by clicking on the double-arrow on the far left of the toolbar.

It's the Apture toolbar. I'm sorry if you find it annoying - I find it quite helpful, as it gives you share links wherever you are on the page, and a quick link back to the homepage even if you're scrolled all the way down. Plus it keeps the site name, site search and logo visible. I've used it on several websites and people generally like it.

You can hide it by clicking on the double-arrow on the far left of the toolbar.

I figured it was for the keeping of the site name visible at all times. LOL And thanks for pointing out the double arrow. If I'd looked any closer, I would have noticed it.